A tale of a kitchen sink...

On Saturday, we embarked on a small home improvement project. Small. Our kitchen faucet has been leaking for awhile now and doesn't get all the way to hot and had finally annoyed us to the point of doing something about it. :)

So. We journeyed to Home Depot, being the good little homeowners we are, to look at faucets. Somehow...somehow...we ended up (after looking both at Home Depot and Lowe's) buying a sink/faucet combo.

In our defense, the combo cost roughly the same as what we figured we'd end up spending on just a faucet. Given that, we decided to go ahead and do both since it's always bothered me that our kitchen sink (like a number of other things in our house) utterly doesn't match. The sink, you see, is beige. Beige, folks. The countertops and tile throughout the house are a very boring cool grey. Meanwhile, the kitchen appliances when we moved in were all white. (Don't even get me started on the bathrooms that have similar mixes of the same grey, beige and white!) Anyhow, we've slowly been switching out the kitchen appliances to stainless steel but the beige sink still clashed with the white range/oven and grey countertops. Here's a before picture with the beige sink and such:

I digress.

Anyhow. We got everything home and started prepping Sunday night (having tackled other household chores in the meantime) only to discover (after closing hours, of course) that there was a flaw in the sink. (It wasn't level once Nathan dropped it down into the hole. And, after belated research, it appeared that this wasn't uncommon for that particular model. Lovely.) Monday, then, we took it back and tried opening the other one in stock at Home Depot only to find the same flaw.

Bleh. Soooo...since Nathan at this point refused to put the old sink back in (it had been a pain to get out, lol) and we were unwilling to journey to all the Home Depots in the area to open the other boxes, we set back out to find both a sink and a faucet (I'll spare you the lengthy decision-making process but suffice it to say that "eenie, meenie" did, in fact, come into play at various points, lol), thereby spending twice as much as originally planned. Fun times. ;) But, here's our new sink and faucet:

 
Ta da! Yeah, nothing fancy but at least it matches and works now. ;) Whew.

(Incidentally, if you're local and interested in a very sturdy cast iron beige sink that retails for more than $500 new, we'll be listing ours on Craigslist shortly. The sink's in dandy condition...just normal wear and tear...and is actually better than the one we replaced it with...just the faucet was giving us problems. Email me to call first dibs.)

Head of hair

I cut the boys' hair again today. Micah's mohawk is now almost as high as it was back when he was one. ;)

That top left picture proves that the boy has simply always had a full head of hair (the photo was taken in his first week--can you see the baby sideburns? lol)...below that was us having fun with his hair just after he'd turned one...the upper right picture is back in November when we first started the mohawk...and the bottom right is today.

I'm obviously biased, but...dang...that's one cute seven year old:

Geese!

Guess what the boys and I spied on our way home from a friend's yesterday? Yeah, I guess putting it in the title of the post kinda gives it away, lol. Anyhow...lots of geese. So, even though we were trying to get home to get Asher back out the door for a demo team performance, we quickly pulled into the parking lot near this park. Noah declared that he would *not* be running on that grass, as it was covered in goose poo, so I handed him my phone and instructed him to take pictures. Asher, Micah and I then took off running from opposite directions:

Dude. That was fun. ;) 

(And, for the record, Noah did end up running on all that grass with us...just couldn't let us have all the fun, lol.)

Oh. And I didn't witness it, myself, but the boys inform me that they literally scared the crap out of those geese...as up close to the flock it was apparently raining poo. I was too slow in my cowboy boots to be right under the flock. (Yet another bonus of my cowboy boots, lol!)

Aren't you glad I shared that last bit with you? Hee hee.

A progression...

So. January's been pretty dang full of thinking. I know I've not said much here, but it's been a lot of thinking through what we're doing with this whole homeschooling thing. ;) In particular, it's been a lot of figuring out what to do regarding the fact that *gasp* we have a middle schooler, who could potentially be dealing with high school issues in a year or two! Because it's confusing (and has been, lol), I'm going to attempt now to list out how our thinking progressed (for my own record and because I know I love reading other people's stories)...

1. It started with the whole LEAP dealio (more here). In the end, we're opting to finish out the year at LEAP...because they already got funding for the boys so we may as well use it and because the boys want to. But. I made the decision to stop expending any more emotional energy on them. It was personal, and I realized that my time would be better spent on other things than trying to change something that was/is highly unlikely to change anyhow. (Yeah, long story.) Plus, in stepping back and really evaluating how we're spending our time in the first place, we're no longer convinced that LEAP is as beneficial for us. (Another long story mostly involving how much/little the boys were being challenged and inspired, lol.)

2. So. With that decision made, we started thinking about what we wanted to do with that "extra" day for next year. We started tossing around the idea of switching to Fort Collin's program or taking more field trips or just schooling more or planning more play dates. (Noah informs me, though, that these are no longer called play dates when you're *twelve*...lol.) (For the record, we're leaning toward the Fort Collins program for the younger two and more schooling time for Noah.)

3. Then, my pal Deanna started freaking out about the fact that high school's just around the corner. And she was contagious. ;) This led us to freak out a bit and start looking into all sorts of options for Noah. (Yes, Deanna, I'm blaming you, lol! Thanks!)

4. So, we started talking through the different options and started realizing that, um, public schools start everything (like registration and information nights and lotteries) in January for the upcoming fall. Yikes. Fortunately, Noah's only 6th grade this year. But if you start looking at calendars, that doesn't leave a full two and a half years before we have to figure out high school. Oy. (Plus, see #7 below.)

5. We briefly looked at our local public high schools. Whilst we think well of the school district and all, we quickly realized that a public high school experience still isn't the right fit for Noah. ;)

6. As luck would have it, we got a postcard that very week about an upcoming information night. We took it as a sign and checked out the local school district's online/hybrid school option (PSD Global Academy). Their information night was good and their staff was inspiring. They made us feel confident and hopeful and a little bit excited by the plan of starting Noah heading in his own direction and starting to separate him a bit from his younger brothers. I thought maybe it would be a good thing for him to have someone other than just me to answer to and to get him used to a more rigorous schedule.

Then, I started asking around about the program and the curriculum they use. And I came to the conclusion that I just wasn't willing to give up that much control over his education quite yet. (Specifically, I worried over being able to be in one level/grade for math and science while in another for language arts. I also worried about busy work and the amount of time it was asking families to log for the sake of logging time.)

7. After that, we went to an information meeting for a local charter high school where kids can take college level classes while in high school and earn both high school and college credit for them. I think we have a winner, folks. ;) Nathan and I are pretty stoked by what we heard and excited for the possibilities. We've talked with Noah about it and he's on board. We'll continue to gather information and look at other choices (because I like to make lists and am indecisive like that, lol), but this is our plan of the moment. 

Note, we have more details to iron out and questions to ask, but what we understand is that he could even potentially apply/enroll next January to test into certain classes as an 8th grader (which he'd be that following fall). We'd be looking to do that on a part time basis, which is, we're told, doable...it would be a more gentle introduction and would play to his strengths.

8. This means that Noah and I sat down yesterday and really looked at his course load so far and started talking about what "normal" high school course loads look like...and whether he wanted to shoot to start any of that sooner...and how we're going to get from here to there...and what colleges might be looking for. It was awesome. Seriously. I'm thrilled and just ordered a new math curriculum to get us to algebra sooner/stronger than our current curriculum would. And he *gets* why and understands that it'll be more work! Hallelujah! (I'll probably do an update on our curriculum choices before too long, as I'm in the process now of switching some stuff out.)

So. That's what's been going on inside my head for the past month. ;)

Mostly, I'm just so grateful for the time to think this stuff through and for the fact that Nathan and I (and Noah) are on the same page. And, I'm truly excited to have a better idea of our upcoming direction for at least one boy. Direction + a longer term plan = good. ;)

(Incidentally, we want to make sure the boys know that we're looking at each of them individually and that what's right for one might not necessarily be right for another...that we're really trying to plan according to the boy and who he is, not some elusive ideal. (And, yes, this means we'll go through this all over again in not too long for Asher, lol.))

Whew. Now that I'm starting to see what's to come, I can look back and be thankful for the whole LEAP dealio...for the wake up call to stop and evaluate rather than just continuing with what we knew. Thanks, too, to Deanna for freaking out...we needed that nudge and are so glad that we'll get to survive high schoolers together!

Ten on Tuesday

Just some little things that make me happy...

1. Last Friday, Nathan and I went for a morning run/cross training circuit together. It was a first for us and turned out pretty well. Along the way, we found a big ol' flock of geese and snuck up on them from opposite directions and scattered them to the winds. It was awesome! Wish I'd taken a picture or video. ;)

2. Over the weekend, we all headed up to The Cupboard here in Fort Collins (fabulous culinary supply type store with lots of goodies), just for kicks. We all wandered around happily for more than an hour. Micah was absolutely delighted to find this cookbook. The boys (all four of them) have been watching pretty much every episode of Good Eats on YouTube for the past few months and love it. Micah has an ongoing list of kitchen supplies he feels we/he need(s). At the moment, the list includes a stand mixer, a good disher, a board scraper, multiple waffle irons (for the record, we have one but apparently he thinks it inadequate) and an offset spatula, among other things. Yes, these are the sorts of things he's thinking about asking for for his birthday half a year from now, lol. (Micah also says that The Cupboard makes good coffee...samples of which he happened to help himself to...a couple times, lol.)

3. After that, we grabbed an early dinner at Beau Jo's. Haven't been there in ages. Beau Taco pizza = awesomeness. ;)

4. I think I may need a pair of nude pumps. The Pioneer Woman told me so. ;)

5. Either that or these boots. (Aren't they beautiful?!)

6. I think, too, that I need to implement this as a standing house rule. Definitely.

7. Once again, I neglected my camera duties...just wanted to say that I appreciate the fun art on the utilities boxes along the path that I was running on yesterday morning. Maybe I'll actually stop and snap a picture one of these days. :)

8. This just makes me smile. I love Iron Man. 

9. I love that the younger two have been on a musicals/classics kick lately. In the past week or so, we've watched "The Sound of Music," "E.T.," "Annie," and "The Wizard of Oz." The singing is driving Noah crazy...particularly when Micah mixes the lyrics and tunes, lol. "Mary Poppins" is next on the list. ;) (I think that may drive Noah over the edge, though. Should be entertaining!)

10. I finally feel like I have a grasp on the swirling thoughts that have been circling in my head all month...more on that in an upcoming post. ;)